It’s time Canada stood up to more bullies besides Trump. China, for instance.

2020/09/19 Leave a comment

Alan Freeman’s piece, written before foreign minister Champagne’s announcement that Canada abandons free-trade talks with China in shift for Trudeau government raises valid comparisons with Australia’s approach:

Sometimes it pays to stand up to a bully. It’s time Canada made a habit of it.

This week, hours before Canada was about to impose tariffs on a range of U.S. products in retaliation for the Trump administration’s imposition of a 10 per cent tariff on Canadian exports of aluminum, the U.S. caved.

The U.S. tariff was cancelled, and though U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer insisted Washington hadn’t backed down, and the tariffs could be reimposed if Canada didn’t behave itself and restrict exports of the metal in future, it was clear that Canada had won this battle.

The imposition of the aluminum tariff was an absurdity from the start, one that seemed to benefit only a few well-connected aluminum producers and to anger everyone else in the U.S. industry. Yet credit still has to go to the Trudeau government and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland for standing tough all the way through.

A similar no-nonsense approach was essential to the renegotiation of NAFTA, an unnecessary exercise prompted by U.S. President Donald Trump, which only had downsides for Canada at the outset. The fact that the new Canada-U.S.-Mexico trade pact doesn’t seem much different from the old one has to be seen as a victory. It could have been a lot worse.

Although Trump has shown his dislike of Trudeau on several occasions — there’s hardly a democratically elected world leader Trump hasn’t tussled with — it hasn’t meant Canada has been so worried about Trump’s volatility that it’s been willing to back down on trade and other issues, which is a good thing. The basic message is that we value our relationship with the U.S., but we won’t be pushed around.

If only Canada could show more of this backbone when dealing with China. Although the Trudeau government has been firm in its reaction to the suspension of freedoms in Hong Kong, and continues to insist on the liberation of the two kidnapped Canadians, Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, it still seems reluctant to respond outspokenly to Chinese excesses.

When it comes to standing up to China, Canada should look at Australia. It’s much more dependent on China than Canada is, with China accounting for one-third of Australia’s exports, including huge quantities of coal, iron ore and agricultural products. And Australia depends on big influxes of Chinese university students and tourists to bolster its economy.

Yet relations are tense, because the Australian government is wary of Chinese efforts to influence — some say infiltrate — Australian universities and political life. In June, Australia’s intelligence services are reported to have raided the homes of four Chinese journalists resident in Australia, as well as of a state legislator whose office was suspected of being used to influence Australian politics.

The four journalists have since returned to China, and the visas of two Chinese academics have been cancelled, but not before China had struck back. Chinese police recently conducted midnight interrogations of two prominent Australian journalists in China, who were forced to seek refuge at Australian diplomatic facilities before fleeing the country.

And in what looks like a repeat of the abduction of the two Michaels, TV news anchor Cheng Lei, a star of CGTN, a Chinese government-owned English TV network in Beijing, was detained last month and is being held for suspected “criminal activity endangering China’s national security.” The Chinese-born journalist is an Australian citizen.

Relations between China and Australia have been deteriorating for years, but what appears to have really upset Beijing was the call in April by Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison for an international investigation into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic. Not only has China cracked down on journalists in retaliation, but it has launched a series of trade actions targeting Australian exports of barley and beef. China has also started an anti-dumping probe against Australian wine — shades of China’s moves against Canadian canola and pork.

When it comes to Huawei, the Australians have already acted, banning the Chinese technology giant from its 5G networks, while Canada continues to prevaricate. It seems at times that the Trudeau government is wishing it would all go away, including the U.S. extradition request for Meng Wanzhou, the Huawei executive arrested in Vancouver in December 2018.

While trade tensions haven’t eased, Australia has at least made clear that it won’t be intimidated. Australia’s Home Affairs Minister Peter Duncan has said about the latest row over journalists that “Australia will defend its core values and principles, such as adherence to the rule of law, press freedom and democracy.”

And the Australian government has armed itself with a series of laws that defend against foreign interference in its political institutions. Just last month, the government proposed federal legislation that would require any foreign agreements signed by states, local governments and universities to be first approved by the central government. The bill seemed aimed specifically at agreements with China.

It follows adoption of federal legislation in 2018 that criminalizes foreign interference in Australian government, including covert, deceptive actions or threats aimed at democratic institutions or providing intelligence to overseas governments.

Because the Chinese economic and political presence is so much more important to Australia than it is to Canada, there is none of the naiveté that still seems to influence Canadian attitudes toward China. As the Globe and Mail has reported this week, Huawei is keen to cash in on those gullible China-sympathetic “influencers,” including one-time politicians and academics who’ve been pressing Ottawa for a prisoner swap to free the two Michaels, so far without success.

Let’s hope that Freeland, with her influence in the Trudeau cabinet at an all-time high, will succeed in convincing her colleagues that Canada needs to stand up to an even bigger bully than Donald Trump. It will take a lot of backbone.

Source: It’s time Canada stood up to more bullies besides Trump. China, for instance.

Filed under foreign policy Tagged with , ,

Home Office immigration unit has ‘no idea’ – MPs

2020/09/19 1 Comment

Another apparent weakness in Home Office policy and management:

The Home Office has “no idea” what its £400m-a-year immigration enforcement unit achieves, meaning it is unprepared for Brexit, MPs have warned.

The cross-party Public Accounts Committee said a lack of diversity at the top of the department also risked a repeat of the Windrush scandal.

Its policies may be based purely on “assumption and prejudice”, it warned.

A Home Office spokeswoman said it used a “balanced” approach to maintain “a fair immigration system”.

The Home Office’s 5,000-strong Immigration Enforcement directorate, and other parts of the system, have been repeatedly reorganised since being branded “unfit for purpose” 15 years ago by the then home secretary.

The latest massive changes will come in January to deal with the end of freedom of movement.

In the highly critical report, the influential committee said officials were reliant on “disturbingly weak evidence” to assess which immigration enforcement policies worked, and why.

Officials had no idea how many people are living illegally in the UK, no idea what their impact was on the economy and public services – and no means of countering claims that could “inflame hostility”.

“We are concerned that if the department does not make decisions based on evidence, it instead risks making them on anecdote, assumption and prejudice,” said the MPs.

“Worryingly, it has no idea of what impact it has achieved for the £400m spent each year.”

The MPs said the the department showed too little concern over failures.

It risked a repeat of the Windrush scandal in which people with a right to be in the UK were treated as illegal immigrants because the Home Office had lost records of their status or did not believe the evidence they provided.

“The significant lack of diversity at senior levels of the department means it does not access a sufficiently wide range of perspectives when establishing rules and assessing the human impact of its decisions,” said the MPs. “Professional judgement cannot be relied upon if an organisation has blind spots, and the Windrush scandal demonstrated the damage such a culture creates.”

From January, unless the UK reaches a deal with Brussels, it will no longer be part of a system that obliges EU members to take back some migrants who have no right to be in another state.

But the MPs said they had been provided with “no evidence” that the Home Office had begun discussions “internally” or with EU nations over how to prepare for the possible impact of that change.

“Without putting new arrangements in place successfully,” warned the MPs, “There is a real risk that EU exit will actually make it more difficult to remove foreign national offenders and those who try to enter the country illegally.”

Committee chairwoman Meg Hillier said: “The Home Office has frighteningly little grasp of the impact of its activities in managing immigration.

“It accepts the wreckage that its ignorance and the culture it has fostered caused in the Windrush scandal – but the evidence we saw shows too little intent to change, and inspires no confidence that the next such scandal isn’t right around the corner.

In response to the report, a Home Office spokeswoman said: “We have developed a balanced and evidence-based approach to maintaining a fair immigration system.

“Since 2010, we have removed more than 53,000 foreign national offenders and more than 133,000 people as enforced removals.

“On a daily basis we continue to tackle those who fail to comply with our immigration laws and abuse our hospitality by committing serious, violent and persistent crimes, with immigration enforcement continually becoming more efficient.”

Source: Home Office immigration unit has ‘no idea’ – MPs

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , ,

Douglas Todd: ‘Religious persecution’ claimed by more asylum seekers in Canada

2020/09/19 Leave a comment

Of interest, including the sensible perspective of Richard Kurland “Canadians don’t have to light their hair on fire.”:

A rising number of “irregular migrants” are arriving in Canada and saying they are victims of religious persecution.

Many of the roughly 60,000 of these migrants who found a way into Canada last year are claiming either political or, increasingly, religious persecution, according to an internal report by the Canadian Border Services Agency.

The report reveals that more than four out of five claimants who arrived from India, Iran and China had found an unauthorized way to get onto Canadian soil before they made their “inland” application for refugee status. A smaller number asked to be viewed as asylum seekers when they arrived at either a land border crossing or a Canadian airport. The report doesn’t clarify which proportion claim religious persecution.

A Vancouver immigration specialist, Richard Kurland, obtained the CBSA document through an access to information request. Normally, Kurland said, about four out of 10 irregular migrants are eventually granted refugee status in Canada, regardless of whether they maintain they have been victims of political or religious persecution.

The uptick in the number of applicants in Canada making claims of religious persecution appears to be a sign of the times.

The Pew Research Center has found that, since 2007, governments around the world have generally imposed greater restrictions on religious freedom.China and Iran, major source countries of migrants to Canada, are among the worst for imposing limits on the way citizens’ practice their faith.

Although China, an officially atheist state, says it permits religious freedom, it only allows five major religious groups to operate and they’re subject to control by the United Front and the Communist Party. House churches, underground Catholics, Falun Gung members and Uighur Muslims face harassment, imprisonment and even torture.

Iran, an Islamic republic in which 98 per cent of the population is Muslim (mostly Shia), formally recognizes Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians, but not Baha’is, who are frequently imprisoned and persecuted as “misguided” Muslims. Religious minorities in Iran often report feeling threatened — and apostasy, specifically conversion from Islam, can be punishable by death.

In addition, Pew gives some its worst marks for “high levels of inter-religious tension” and “violence by organized groups” to the large migrant-source countries of India and Nigeria. It also lists Egypt and Pakistan, both Muslim-majority states.

While India is a secular state with a reputation for religious tolerance, since it is the birthplace of Jainism, Hinduism, Buddhism and Sikhism, in recent decades there have been anti-Sikh, anti-Hindu, anti-Muslim and anti-Christian riots. There are also reports of vigilantism in regions run by the Hindu nationalist BJP Party.

Nigeria’s population of 200 million is roughly divided between Muslims and Christians. In recent years gun battles have burst our between young, often-educated members of rival Christian and Muslim sects, leading to dozens of deaths and the burning of mosques and churches.

No doubt there is severe religious persecution occurring in many places. But not all maltreatment narratives are believed by Canada’s border officials, who reject the majority of irregular applicants.

Regardless of the reasons irregular migrants have for claiming refugee status, Kurland emphasizes, “The big question is: ‘How many of the failed applicants are actually removed from Canada?”

Canadian officials, like those in other immigrant-receiving nations, typically only get around to forcibly removing about 15 per cent of failed claimants, he said. The rest find ways to work with immigration officials to stretch out their stays in Canada for years.

“It’s not Amazon.com. You can’t just pack them up and return them,” Kurland said.

What is the common pattern for recent irregular migrants? The reality is that most who end up in Canada first go to the U.S., Kurland said, before they illicitly cross the land border into Quebec or Ontario.

Most don’t apply for refugee status as they cross a land border or touch down at a Canadian airport, he said, because they justifiably fear being immediately deported.

(Government-assisted refugees are in a different category, since they come to Canada recommended and approved by the United Nations.)

There are weaknesses in arguing you were persecuted for religious beliefs, Kurland said.

The main drawback is border and immigration officials will likely ask why you didn’t escape persecution by moving to another region of your own country. So-called “internal flight” is a common way to avoid harassment, especially in India, Pakistan and Nigeria.

Despite the many inconsistencies involved in the way Canada and other immigrant-receiving countries deal with irregular migrants, Kurland believes we don’t have a terrible system. “Canadians don’t have to light their hair on fire.”

Since the worst applicants are returned to their country of origin, the many others who find ways to drag out their stays often end up contributing. Many marry, find sponsors and hold down jobs, eventually obtaining permanent resident status.

“They’re the ones who’ve beaten the Darwinian system.”

Source: Douglas Todd: ‘Religious persecution’ claimed by more asylum seekers in Canada

Filed under Refugees, Religion Tagged with ,

Ontario families living in more racialized neighbourhoods less likely to send children back into classroom, Globe analysis finds

2020/09/19 Leave a comment

Interesting possible explanations for a counter-intuitive effect, as I had thought that it would be those with higher socioeconomic status that would be best able to support remote learning:

As some of Ontario’s largest school boards scramble to accommodate a mass migration to remote learning, an analysis by The Globe and Mail shows families living in more racialized neighbourhoods are less likely to send their children back into the classroom.

The Globe analyzed the percentage of remote learners for hundreds of schools across the Greater Toronto Area, identifying patterns related to income, race, density of housing and COVID-19 cases. The data reveals regional and neighbourhood differences, suggesting the government’s back-to-school approach of offering a choice between online learning and in-class instruction could be forcing people with the fewest resources into unfamiliar learning environments.

“The numbers of parents opting for online due to concerns about the back-to-school plan is understandable to protect their child, but the potential impact on educational inequities between in-school and out-of-school learning for students is deeply concerning,” said Carol Campbell, an associate professor at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto. She added that early evidence indicates the students with the most negative experiences of remote learning in the spring were students living in low income households, students with special education needs and those learning the English language.

The four boards analyzed by the Globe – Toronto District, Peel, York Region and Hamilton-Wentworth – represent more than a quarter of the student population in the province. Ontario’s approach is similar to Alberta’s, while the B.C. government has allowed boards to offer the remote learning option to families.

The Globe’s analysis revealed that 78 per cent of families in Toronto’s high-income neighbourhoods chose to send their children to the classroom compared with 64 per cent of families in low-income neighbourhoods. Similarly, more than 80 per cent of families in Toronto neighbourhoods with a low-racialized population opted for in-class learning, and only 60 per cent of families who live in high-racialized neighbourhoods did the same.

The Globe’s analysis divided neighbourhoods into four quarters, respectively, based on their median household income and percentage of visible minorities in the neighbourhood. The demographic and economic information was based on the 2016 census.

Kwame McKenzie, chief executive of the Wellesley Institute, a Toronto think-tank, said family decisions are often influenced by neighbours and friends.

“Complex social trends can be less complex than we think because people are connected,” Dr. McKenzie said. “Yes, there are the stats [on COVID-19] but do not underestimate the importance of social connections. We look and see what other people are doing and talk to people before we make decisions.”

At Crescent Town Elementary School in east Toronto, about half of students have opted for online learning this year. The school is in the Taylor-Massey neighbourhood, which is low-income and has a medium-to-high visible minority presence. About 77 per cent of residents live in apartment buildings that are more than five-storeys tall, which Razia Rashed, a parent who sits on Crescent Town’s school council, said is a major contributing factor. Living in a dense neighbourhood has made families nervous, she said: they’re worried about community transmission, especially if they have to ride the elevator twice daily to take their children to and from school.

Much of the neighbourhood is composed of immigrants from Bangladesh, India and Pakistan, and Ms. Rashed said many parents in the community have more closely followed news and stories from relatives in their countries of origin, rather than domestically, about the toll COVID-19 has taken (the worst outbreaks in South Asia have been in India and Bangladesh).

“How it is back home matters,” Ms. Rashed said.

In Toronto, online learners are also over-represented in low income neighbourhoods, in contrast to Brampton – a hot spot for COVID-19 and one of the country’s most diverse cities – where high income neighbourhoods have the lowest rates of in-class learning. Many parents are working from home and are opting to keep their children there as well. Brad Teeter, the principal of Eldorado Public School in Brampton, said students also live in multi-generational homes with elderly grandparents who are more vulnerable to infection.

His school, part of the Peel District School Board, is in a high-income neighbourhood with a large East Indian population and just over 40 per cent of students have opted for virtual learning.

In his conversations with families, Mr. Teeter lets them know about the health and safety measures in his school, and he knows parents are wrestling with difficult decisions. The Peel board has delayed the start of its live online school to the week of Sept. 21 after seeing enrolment jump to 64,000 students, an increase of more than 10,000 in the past week.

“We would love to see every kid in the building … [but] there’s still, I think, a lot of COVID fears that are happening and parents are making decisions in the best interests of their families and safety for the kids and each member of the family,” Mr. Teeter said.

Satinder Gill, whose three children attend school in Brampton, said the decision to have them learn online was difficult. She and her husband did not want to compromise the health of her in-laws, who live with relatives next door, or her parents living close by. In her Punjabi Indian culture, she said that the “extended family plays a very big role.”

“Our kids are exposed to many people in the family and we love that about our culture. That makes these types of decisions very difficult to make,” Ms. Gill said.

Sonia Reid, whose daughter attends Heart Lake Secondary School, also in Brampton, said the family’s plans called for her daughter to attend school in-person, but then Ms. Reid grew worried as she watched people in her area become less cautious, coupled with a rise in COVID-19 cases. She said that among her group of friends, only one has decided to send their child into the classroom.

“All those little things, and watching the numbers go up, I definitely knew that starting in September, I had to switch her to completely online,” Ms. Reid said.

Overall, a significant portion of Ontario students are not returning to the classroom. That number is most stark in Brampton, where only 56 per cent of elementary students will be in school, compared with Hamilton where 83 per cent of elementary children will learn in classrooms. In Toronto, meanwhile, preliminary data showed that 69 per cent of elementary children and 75 per cent of high school students are returning to the classroom. The Toronto and Peel boards have said this week that thousands of families have been switching to online learning in recent days amid rising COVID-19 rates.

In Ontario, families have been given a choice between in-person and virtual learning. Alberta school districts, too, have offered families an online option. The B.C. government said school districts have flexibility to provide remote learning options, but there is confusion among parents and school officials as to what that means. In Montreal, school districts did not provide a school-by-school enrolment breakdown of online and in-class learning. Online options in Quebec are only for children with medical exemptions and those forced to stay home because of illness or quarantine. The English school board said it had given about 400 medical exemptions that allow children to receive online learning among 19,600 students. The Centre de services scolaire de Montréal has 363 students online among its 77,500 students.

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

Why the ideal of meritocracy only deepens inequality

2020/09/18 Leave a comment

Relevant questioning:

If the Western world has a unifying social concept any longer, it’s the ideal of meritocracy, of establishing an equality of opportunity that allows every individual to rise to whatever level their hard work and innate abilities can take them to. It’s an ideal, however aspirational, that seems both obvious and profoundly moral to contemporary society: we all get what we deserve. Yet it has had its doubters from the start. The very word was coined in a 1958 satire, The Rise of the Meritocracy, by British sociologist Michael Young, which imagined a 2034 uprising by disenchanted proles against an arrogant, credentialed governing elite, all selected to their positions by virtue of their talents and education.

More recently, this foundational notion has come under the critical gaze of several scholars, often—as in the case of Yale Law School professor Daniel Markovits, author of 2019’s The Meritocracy Trap—high-ranking faculty at major universities. That seems paradoxical at first, given that the authors’ academic credentials, some of the world’s most prestigious, mark them as significant winners in the meritocratic race. But that perception changes when Markovits’ argument is examined: our meritocracy requires an endless, stress-filled, life-consuming competition even among the winners. It is perhaps even less paradoxical once the role major universities play as engines of increasingly hereditary privilege and contemporary socio-economic inequality is considered.

None of those previous critiques of meritocracy attracted the attention currently drawn by the newest, The Tyranny of Merit, by Harvard political philosopher Michael Sandel. Partly that is a matter of timing. Released on Sept. 15, in the midst of one of the most rancorous presidential elections in American history, Sandel’s book primarily explores the political responses of meritocracy’s losers, whose populist backlash helped put Donald Trump in the White House in 2016 and may well send him back for another four years in November. But there is much more than electoral politics involved. The Tyranny of Merit is infused with moral urgency, elegantly written and cogently argued, with a core conclusion both succinct and indisputable: meritocracy does not counter inequality, it justifies it.

Q: There has been extraordinary interest in your book, even before publication. You really hit a nerve, didn’t you?

A: Well, it seems so. I’ve been deluged with responses, so many emails—it’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before. So it seems to be touching on something that people have been feeling, but haven’t quite worked out or articulated.

Q: Does meritocracy’s support for growing inequality make it the prime source of bitter political discontent, especially in your country?

A: The faults of meritocracy get us to the heart of the failure of mainstream parties to address the frustrations and anger and resentment that have created such deep polarization. The divide between winners and losers has been deepening, poisoning our politics and driving us apart. This divide has partly to do with inequalities in income and wealth, but we’ve been aware of that for a while, right? It also has to do with what we don’t see, the changing attitudes towards success and failure, which have accompanied the deepening inequality. Somehow, those on top in recent decades have come to believe that their success is their own doing entirely. It’s the measure of their merit. By implication, then, those who’ve been left behind must deserve their fate as well. My Harvard students all feel they deserve their place there on the basis of their own efforts. They do not consider the higher-quality schools they attended or the resources their parents put into years of SAT preparation, the role of good fortune in their lives. This is what I call the meritocratic hubris of the elite. And it accounts for the sense among many working people that the elite look down on them. Feeling looked down upon, that’s a source of resentment, of humiliation and anger. And this explains, I think, the populist backlash against elites that we’ve witnessed since 2016, in Brexit as well as with Trump.

Q: It also explains why anti-elitists in America have no problem with the most billionaire-stuffed presidential cabinet in history. They don’t link the elite with money. They link the elite to attitudes.

A: Exactly. That’s why this wealthy real estate developer is able to be the voice of a populist backlash. The one authentic thing about Trump is his sense of grievance and resentment. This he feels viscerally because he feels that throughout his career New York elites, financial elites, intellectual elites, media elites have all looked down on him. So he’s able to connect with the sense of humiliation experienced by the working people who vote for him, despite the fact that most of his policies don’t help them. But it’s not about the policies, it’s about the grievances, and some of the grievances are understandable and legitimate. It’s important to disentangle them from the ugly dimensions of Trump’s appeal—the xenophobia, the racism, the misogyny. Those two streams, the racial and the socio-economic, overlap. It’s worth remembering that there were millions of people who voted for Trump who had previously voted for Obama.

Q: You devote considerable space to American higher education, discussing how something that is supposed to be—and is widely seen as—central to equality of opportunity is actually an engine of inequality in the U.S.

A: Yes. Even though we think of universities as the means to individual upward mobility, few disadvantaged applicants get into the most selective schools, and fewer than two per cent of the students in some 1,800 colleges and universities overall came in poor and rose to the top 20 per cent in income. The universities have become sorting machines, and I worry that their credentializing function is beginning to crowd out their educational mission. You saw how Brett Kavanaugh pleaded his Yale credentials as his defence during his Supreme Court confirmation hearing? That was remarkable. What bearing did that have on the question of whether or not he committed sexual assault while in high school? The college admission scandal was telling, too: parents willing to cheat their kids through a “side door” into highly selective institutions whose front doors they couldn’t have passed through on their own—because it wasn’t the education that mattered, it was the credentials. And even the front-door students needed an enormous investment of resources unavailable to poorer kids—hereditary privilege is digging its way back in.

Q: That brings us to the idea that has brought the most media attention to The Tyranny of Merit: university entrance by lottery. Once Harvard and its peers have gathered all their applications—multiples larger than the available places—just pull the names out of a hat. You had a lovely line to justify this lottery: “It summons chance to chasten hubris.”

A: The lottery idea arises in part out of an awareness of how impossible it is to make fine-grained judgments about future achievement at age 18. I don’t care how good the admissions office is at Harvard. No one can predict that. But more than that, it’s also to send a much-needed message to the students and their parents, the students who get in and the students who don’t, to remind them of the role that luck, accident, contingency, fortune play in life.

Q: You argue that meritocracy and its discontents have resulted in a politics of humiliation, more combustive and more corrosive than the politics of injustice.

A: Complaints about injustice in policy and law are a familiar part of everyday politics. But the politics of humiliation are different. They run deeper because they’re about one’s self-esteem and standing in society and anger at being looked down upon, at the feeling that the work one does is not appreciated by the wider society. As well, part of the politics of humiliation involves the sense—our meritocratic society can encourage this sense—among those who are left out that, well, maybe those on top are more hardworking and talented than me. Maybe I just didn’t make it. Maybe I share the blame for my condition. When meritocratic assumptions take hold to that extent and shape the self-understandings of those left behind, then along with the sense of exclusion comes a nagging sense of self-doubt, which creates a toxic politics.

Q: Looking back over recent political history, you find the root of this malaise 30 or 40 years ago, when most parts of the political spectrum, including the centre-left, embraced market-driven solutions for social and economic issues. And when the centre-left did that, it then had more in common with the professional classes than with its former working-class base.

A: Exactly, and that’s why it took the brunt of the backlash from the working class. Otherwise, it’s very hard to explain why the backlash was primarily right-wing in expression. Part of the problem can be seen in the credentialism of political representatives. FDR’s cabinet was not very credentialed, and Clement Attlee’s post-war British government—one of the most successful in British history, creator of the national health service—had seven cabinet ministers who had been coal miners. The idea that only the so-called best and the brightest, as proven by their credentials, can govern well is belied by this history—actually, the elites from 1980 to 2020 have done a far worse governing job than the elites in the 40 years before.

Q: A crucial difference lies in the makeup of those governing elites.

A: Yes, yes. In 1979 41 per cent of Labour MPs in Britain did not have a university degree, now that’s 16 per cent; 37 per cent of them had backgrounds in manual occupation, now that’s seven per cent. In Congress, 95 per cent of House members and 100 per cent of senators are college graduates. The credentialed few govern the uncredentialed many—but it wasn’t always this way. In the early 1960s about a fourth of Congress hadn’t a college degree. Congress has become more diverse in race, ethnicity and gender, but less in class—and therefore in life and working experience. It’s true across the Western world, which has reverted back to the way things were before most workers had the right to vote, when parliaments belonged to aristocrats and landed gentry.

Q: What about meritocracy in the pandemic? COVID is certainly exposing fault lines: the rich are getting richer (consider the stock market), the affluent, working from home, are staying affluent, and the working class gets to lose their jobs or their lives. Do you see any hope in our new awareness?

A: I think the pandemic offers a possible moment for rethinking, because it shines a bright light on the divisions that were already present, and highlights the gulf between those who can work relatively removed from risk and those who have little choice about exposing themselves to risk. It’s made us aware of our deep dependence on workers we often overlook—we call them essential now. So this could be a moment for rethinking the dignity of work and in trying to reconfigure the economy so that it better rewards and better honours people on whom we all depend. It’s just possible that when the pandemic recedes, we could use this growing awareness to try to create a better kind of politics, a politics of the common good.

Q: What other possible positive developments do you see?

A: The other hope that I see in the current crisis is Black Lives Matter. I do think this movement has become a multiracial and multigenerational one that is opening up possibilities for a public debate about what makes for a just society. That would be a morally engaged kind of public discourse of a kind that we’ve not really had in recent decades. We have outsourced our moral judgments to markets. We have assumed that the money people make is the measure of their contribution to the common good. And this is a mistake, but it’s a mistake that arises from having outsourced our moral judgment to markets.

Source: Why the ideal of meritocracy only deepens inequality

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

Exploring the danger behind Quebec’s anti-mask conspiracy theorists

2020/09/18 Leave a comment

Of concern:

Late one Tuesday night in May, while most of Quebec was still under lockdown orders, the phone rang in Premier François Legault’s riding office.

In a calm but firm voice, a man left a message saying he regretted voting for Legault, and then warned the premier that his days were numbered.

A few hours later, at 3:16 a.m., the man called back and left another message. This time he was screaming and swearing about Quebec’s top public health official, Dr. Horacio Arruda.

The man said he could get access to a gun and wanted to shoot Arruda.

A member of Legault’s office staff who heard the message alerted Quebec provincial police. Their investigation quickly turned international.

The calls were traced to a 47-year-old trucker from Quebec City, Philippe Côté. A tracking device on his truck indicated Côté was in Texas, not far from a gun shop, when he phoned Legault’s office.

Canadian border guards were placed on alert. When Côté crossed back into Canada on May 16, they spent three hours searching his truck.

The border guards didn’t find any weapons, but they did uncover evidence of a different threat, one that also crosses borders and has the potential for violence.

“Several bits of paper were found on which were written different political conspiracy theories,” reads a description of the incident contained in court documents.

Côté was allowed to re-enter the country, but was arrested by provincial police a short time later. On May 21, he pleaded guilty to two counts of uttering death threats, and will be sentenced later this month.Côté’s lawyer, Olivier Morin, told reporters back in May that his client had been emotionally distraught by the pandemic and the rules he had to follow as a trucker.

“He was mixed up. He wanted answers and he went on conspiracy websites,” Morin said.

Since May, provincial police in Quebec have arrested at least four other people for allegedly making online threats against politicians and other public figures. Police have interviewed several more about their online activities following complaints from the public.

The suspects all have Facebook accounts that promote conspiracy theories about COVID-19, including some that originate from QAnon, a conspiracy movement that began in the U.S. and is now considered a national security threat by the FBI.

Experts who monitor extremist groups in Quebec are concerned about the role conspiracy theories are playing in radicalizing online behaviour, and the possibility it could turn into real-world violence.

“We’ve seen it before, and it was called Alexandre Bissonnette,” said Martin Geoffroy, who heads an anti-radicalization research centre at Cégep Édouard-Montpetit, a public francophone college in Longueuil.Geoffroy was referring to the man who killed six people at a Quebec City mosque in 2017.

“QAnon is ravaging the mainstream population right now,” Geoffroy said. “This is part of the collateral damage of the pandemic.”

Conspiracy theories take root in pandemic

Conspiracy theories shape the way a significant number of Quebecers think about the pandemic.

A poll conducted last month for Montreal’s La Presse newspaper suggested 35 per cent of the population believe mainstream media outlets are spreading false information about COVID-19; 18 per cent believe the pandemic is a tool created by governments to control them.

Those findings echo a survey done in June by the province’s public health research institute (INSPQ), which found 23 per cent of Quebecers believe that COVID-19 was fabricated in a laboratory — a theory rejected by scientists who have studied the genetic code of the virus and determined it was not manipulated.

Among the most popular purveyors of conspiracy theories in the province is Alexis Cossette-Trudel, the son of two convicted FLQ terrorists, who broadcasts his views on social media under the moniker Radio-Québec.His YouTube channel has more than 110,000 subscribers. Analytics show that number has nearly quadrupled since the pandemic hit Quebec in March.

Cossette-Trudel openly expresses support for QAnon, which holds, among other claims, that U.S. President Donald Trump is waging a battle against an international cabal of high-profile liberals who are Satan-worshipping pedophiles operating a child sex-trafficking ring.

In one recent video, Cossette-Trudel said Legault was exaggerating the risks of COVID-19 as part of a global plot to ruin the economy and prevent Trump from being re-elected.

This strain of conspiracy thinking is a visible component in the ongoing anti-mask demonstrations in Quebec.

At a protest last Saturday in Montreal, which attracted several thousand people, there were dozens of posters and T-shirts inspired by QAnon symbols and slogans.

Many participants said they thought the pandemic was “over” or “fake” and that the government was lying about the deadliness of the disease.”At first I thought Radio-Québec was too extreme, but then with time I realized they are right,” said Marie-Josée Bernard, a mother of three who took part in Saturday’s demonstration.

Arrests for alleged threats

Conspiracy theories, though, are not only contributing to anti-mask protests in Quebec, they also appear to be playing a role in violent online behaviour.

  • On July 28, a 26-year-old man was arrested for allegedly making online threats against a journalist. His Facebook page has links to conspiracy videos about the pandemic, and content from QAnon supporters.
  • On July 30, a 27-year-old man was charged with intimidation, obstructing an officer and three counts of uttering threats against Legault, Arruda and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. His Facebook page features links to far-right content, videos by Radio-Québec and various other conspiracy videos about the pandemic.
  • On August 4, a man in his 60s was arrested for allegedly making online threats against both Legault and Arruda. The arrest came shortly after a Facebook account that circulates QAnon conspiracies published Arruda’s home address.
  • On Aug. 7, a 45-year old man from Drummondville was charged with intimidation and two counts of uttering threats, reportedly against Arruda. Along with posting conspiracies about the pandemic, his Facebook page also features racist and anti-Semitic content.

Along with the arrests, Quebec provincial police have also met with several other individuals about threats associated with their social media accounts, at least three of which indicated support for Radio-Québec.

Cossette-Trudel did not respond to a request for comment.

‘We don’t want to wait until it’s too late’

In the U.S., conspiracy theories in general, and those associated with QAnon in particular, have contributed to the radicalization of several people who have committed acts of violence.

A recent study published by West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center concluded that the “increasing frequency of criminal or violent acts by QAnon supporters seems possible, even likely” in the months to come.

Experts in Quebec have similar fears that online violence could move offline.

“We’re speaking with police to help with prevention. We don’t want to wait until it’s too late,” said Roxane Martel-Perron, who heads education efforts for Montreal’s Centre for the Prevention of Radicalization Leading to Violence.

The issue, said Martel-Perron, is not that people would question the government’s handling of the pandemic. It’s that the answers they are receiving — about shadowy plots out to control them — can be used to justify extreme acts.

“What we’re worried about is the violent means that might be taken in response to these perceived grievances,” she said.

Quebec politicians have signalled their growing concern, as well.

On Tuesday, the first day of the fall legislative session, independent MNA Catherine Fournier introduced a motion calling on the National Assembly to “recognize that the rise of conspiracy theories in Quebec is alarming and requires concerted action from civil society and public authorities.”

The motion passed unanimously.

Source: Exploring the danger behind Quebec’s anti-mask conspiracy theorists

Filed under Other Tagged with , , ,

HHS Spokesperson Takes Leave of Absence After Disparaging Government Scientists

2020/09/18 Leave a comment

Posted given Canadian connection (Paul Alexander):

Michael Caputo, the top spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services and a longtime ally of President Trump’s, is taking a 60-day leave of absence after a social media tirade in which he falsely accused government scientists of engaging in “sedition.”

HHS announced the leave in a news release Wednesday, which said Caputo decided to take the two months off as the department’s assistant secretary for public affairs “to focus on his health and the well-being of his family.” In a statement, Caputo described the situation as a medical leave for “a lymphatic issue discovered last week.”

The leave of absence effectively removes Caputo from government operations through November’s election. The statement also announced that Paul Alexander, whom Caputo had brought in as a scientific adviser, would be leaving the department altogether.

Last week, Caputo came under fire after reports that he and Alexander sought to edit and delay public health reports from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Emails from Alexander obtained by Politico complained to CDC Director Robert Redfield that the agency’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report “hurt the President,” and described data-based publications on the risk of the coronavirus in children as “hit pieces on the administration” that undermined Trump’s school reopening plan. NPR has confirmed Politico’s reporting.

Regarding the reports of interference with the publication, “It’s very concerning, if people who are really motivated by politics and not by science and don’t have a scientific background are suddenly interfering,” said Erin Marcus, a physician at the University of Miami Health System and Public Voices fellow. “These actions have real effects on the health of our population and on our ability to function as physicians.”

In a Facebook Live video streamed on his personal page on Sunday, Caputo described a conspiracy in which policymakers, the media and “deep state” scientists are keeping Americans sick with COVID-19 to improve the Democrats’ chances of winning November’s presidential election. He accused “scientists who work for this government” of “sacrificing lives” for personal gain and of engaging in “sedition.”

His language echoed an Aug. 22 tweet from Trump accusing “the deep state, or whoever, over at the FDA” of deliberately delaying the recruitment of clinical trial participants for COVID-19 drugs and vaccines to hurt his chances of reelection. There is no credible evidence for these theories.

Caputo’s video, subsequently deleted, was first reported Monday by The New York Times. Clips from the video were later published by Yahoo News.

Caputo is a longtime Republican consultant who specializes in public relations. He joined HHS in mid-April at a time when the Trump administration was under heavy criticism over its handling of the pandemic. White House observersconsidered his appointment a move by the president to gain more control over the U.S. health department. In his five-month tenure as the top communications official, Caputo shaped messages from health agencies to align with the Trump administration’s political messaging in the heat of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Caputo is considered a Trump loyalist who was a communications director for Trump’s presidential campaign in 2016 — a role he resigned from after sending a public tweet celebrating Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski’s exit from the campaign.

While his social media tirade was highly unusual for a government spokesperson, Caputo promoted conspiracy theories about politics in Washington, D.C., before he joined the administration. In a March 13 episode of his former podcast Still Standing, first reported by Media Matters for America, he said Democrats wanted Americans to die from COVID-19 so they could unseat Trump in the next election. “How much does our economy have to die and how many Americans have to die for these Democrats to get what they want?” he asked rhetorically.

Caputo had previously been investigated over his ties to Russia, where he lived in the 1990s and was an adviser to the Russian government, during the Justice Department investigation into the 2016 presidential election campaign. In 2020, before joining the administration, Caputo released a book and a documentary called The Ukraine Hoax, pushing discredited claims that Ukraine’s government — and not Russia’s — had interfered with the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Source: HHS Spokesperson Takes Leave of Absence After Disparaging Government Scientists

Filed under Government Tagged with , ,

Australia has announced a new citizenship test. Here’s how it will work

2020/09/18 Leave a comment

Note the value-type questions, most being more broadly focussed with one, arguably, being more targeted (readers to judge which one!):

Australia’s citizenship test is getting its first update in more than a decade, with a focus on Australian values.

Announcing the changes on Thursday – which marks Australian Citizenship Day – Acting Minister for Immigration, Citizenship, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs, Alan Tudge said: “Our Australian values are important. They have helped shape our country and they are the reason why so many people want to become Australian citizens”.

The new questions, which will be included on Australian citizenship tests from 15 November, “require potential citizens to understand and commit to our values, like freedom of speech, mutual respect, equality of opportunity, the importance of democracy and the rule of law,” Mr Tudge said in a statement.

“We are asking those who apply for citizenship to understand our values more deeply before they make the ultimate commitment to our nation.”

What kind of questions will be on the new test?

The updated citizenship test will comprise of 20 multiple choice questions, including five new questions on Australian values. The applicant will be required to correctly answer all five of the questions on values, with a mark of at least 75 per cent overall, to pass the test.

There will be no changes to the English language or residency requirements for citizenship.

Examples of questions in the new values section include:

  • Why is it important that all Australian citizens vote to elect the state and federal parliament?

  • Should people in Australia make an effort to learn English?

  • In Australia, can you encourage violence against a person or group of people if you have been insulted?

  • Should people tolerate one another where they find that they disagree?

  • In Australia, are people free to choose who they marry or not marry?

  • In Australia, is it acceptable for a husband to be violent towards his wife if she has disobeyed or disrespected him?

  • Do you agree that men and women should be provided equality of opportunity when pursuing their goals and interests?

  • Should people’s freedom of speech and freedom of expression be respected in Australia?

These aren’t the exact questions in the test and answers will be multiple choice.

An updated version of the Australian Citizenship: Our Common Bond resource will also be made available online to assist those preparing for the test.

Source: Australia has announced a new citizenship test. Here’s how it will work

Filed under Citizenship Tagged with ,

Search for new director of U of T law faculty’s International Human Rights Program leads to resignations, allegations of interference

2020/09/18 Leave a comment

Resignation sends a message:

The faculty advisory board of the International Human Rights Program (IHRP) at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Law has resigned following a controversy over the hiring of a new director for the program.

Edward Iacobucci, dean of the prestigious law school, has come under fire, accused of rescinding an offer of directorship to prominent international academic Valentina Azarova.

Several national and international scholars wrote to the university to express their consternation that the reversal came after reports of pressure from a sitting judge — a major donor to the faculty. He reportedly expressed concerns in private over Azarova’s past work on the issue of Israel’s human rights abuses in Palestine. All the letters mentioned here have been seen by the Star.

“The recent search for an executive director has generated substantial controversy, including allegations of outside interference in the hiring process,” Vincent Chiao, Trudo Lemmens and Anna Su, three members of the faculty advisory committee, wrote to Iacobucci on Wednesday. “We are disappointed by this outcome, the lack of fair process, including the failure to provide reasons for the decision taken.”

Audrey Macklin, who chaired that committee, and was part of the selection panel that unanimously found Azarova the best candidate for the job, resigned from the board last week.

In a statement to the Star, the university cited confidentiality in personnel matters, but said, “We can confirm that no offer of employment was made to any candidate, and therefore, no offer was revoked. The Faculty of Law has cancelled the search. No offers were made because of technical and legal constraints pertaining to cross-border hiring at this time,” said Kelly Hannah-Moffat, vice-president of human resources and equity. Azarova, who is based in Germany, declined to speak to the Star.

But a letter to Iacobucci from two past directors of the IHRP on Sept. 12 contradicts the university’s assertion that no offer of employment was made.

“Azarova — the hiring committee’s top candidate — accepted the faculty’s offer in mid-August,” wrote Carmen Cheung and the most recent director, Samer Muscati. “The Faculty of Law put Dr. Azarova in touch with immigration counsel to advise her on her options for securing a permit to work in Canada, and Dr. Azarova began planning to move with her partner from Germany to Toronto, where her stepchildren reside.”

Azarova has taught law and international law and has worked to establish human rights enforcement mechanisms in Europe and beyond and has consulted for United Nations fact-finding missions, among other accomplishments.

The dean cited confidentiality, and offered one statement to faculty at a meeting on Monday and to individual letter writers. “The uninformed and speculative rumours have reached such a level that, no offer of employment having been made, the University has decided to cancel the search for a candidate at this time.”

Letters to the university from international scholars, members of an alumni steering committee and other faculty strongly condemned what they saw as “improper external pressure” and “impropriety of such interference by alumni.”

“The mere perception of interference has the potential to undermine the integrity of the Faculty of Law’s hiring process and the reputation and future work of the IHRP,” says a letter from two co-chairs of the IHRP Alumni Steering Committee.

Cancelling the search effectively maintains the status quo that the IHRP remains without a permanent director.

Trudo Lemmens of the faculty advisory committee said he was hoping for a firm statement either confirming an attempt to interfere — and detailing the university’s response — or refuting the allegations.

“As a faculty member of an academic institution which values academic freedom and human rights issues, I have no clear understanding of why the appointment didn’t take place. That’s why I joined colleagues in resigning because I’m not in a position to firmly defend the process and the decision. This is particularly important because I so strongly believe in the value of the program and the integrity of the program.”

A professor at U of T Law said: “He (the dean) alludes to the rumours but he does not deny them. Of course, we can only speculate — we don’t know what the person told him and what he did. If there’s no basis for this rumour, we’re misinformed. So please inform us.

“That carefully crafted lawyerly response is non-responsive.”

The IHRP has been without a permanent director for more than a year. Academics and legal experts who are familiar with Azarova’s work told the Star she was a perfect candidate.

“She’s a human rights practitioner in a wide variety of areas,” said Itamar Mann, associate professor, the University of Haifa Faculty of Law, who worked closely with Azarova at the non-profit Global Legal Action Network on migration and refugee issues in Europe.

She is a fellow at the Manchester International Law Centre, University of Manchester, speaks multiple languages and has lived in the Middle East and Africa.

The university program itself is known to offer learning opportunities for students, exposing them to national and international human rights concerns.

Professors told the Star that while even controversial views cannot be censored, those espoused by Azarova are not radical and adhere to mainstream legal consensus on Israeli settlements in Palestinian territories.

“Her criticism of Israel is extremely legitimate within Israel,” Mann said. “It’s a criticism that I share. It’s a criticism of long-standing human rights violations of international law, primarily through the project of settlements which is unquestionably illegal and that’s the kind of majority position around the world. It’s not an exotic position to take at all.

“Even from the perspective of people who imagine themselves as helping defend or support Israel, I think this would be a grave mistake.

“Being able to debate is an essential part of democracy.”

Source: https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2020/09/17/search-for-new-director-of-u-of-t-law-facultys-international-human-rights-program-leads-to-resignations-allegations-of-interference.html

Filed under foreign policy Tagged with , , ,

How Covid-19 is changing citizenship by investment

2020/09/17 Leave a comment

More in depth than previous post:

Before Covid-19 connections and money could buy almost anyone the right to live pretty much anywhere they wanted.

The industry known today as CRBI—citizenship and residence by investment—began in 1984 in the Caribbean island of St. Kitts and Nevis, which offered a passport to foreigners who “invested substantially” in their economy. Today, more than half of the world’s 193 countries will trade citizenship or residency for cash. The industry is worth up to $25 billion a year and has spawned a new class of self-styled global citizens. But it’s also attracted criticism from those who say passports-for-purchase turn democracies into havens for criminals and facilitate money laundering and tax evasion.

The pandemic has led to unprecedented border closures and travel restrictions. Experts say that’s helped the CRBI industry grow but it’s also shaking it up, as high net worth individuals turn away from traditionally prized passports like the US and towards countries with high-quality healthcare systems.

London-based CRBI advisory firm Henley & Partners saw a 49% increase in enquiries in the first two quarters of 2020 compared to the same period last year. A competing advisory firm, Arton Capital, saw a dip in interest in the first quarter of the year as the pandemic spread in Asia. But enquiries rebounded and have increased 25% since April according to founder Armand Arton.

The CRBI industry was growing before the pandemic, thanks to demand from wealthy individuals in developing countries like India or Nigeria, whose economic growth has outpaced their diplomatic clout, “which is what bestows visa-free travel on citizens,” explains Paddy Blewer, public relations director for Henley & Partners.

A millionaire from oil-rich Gabon, for example, needs to apply for a visa to enter Europe’s Schengen zone. But that process can take up to 60 days and evidence suggests that Schengen visa applications from Africa are more likely to get rejected. Instead, a second citizenship from a Caribbean nation would guarantee them visa-free access to Europe for $150,000. That’s merely a “rounding error” for Blewer’s clients, who typically have about $6 million of assets under management.

Because of Covid-19, Blewer and Arton say investors are looking for countries who are perceived to have dealt with the pandemic better than others. That applies to Germany, Portugal, Australia, and New Zealand. Essentially, if people can work remotely from anywhere in the world, says Blewer, they are asking themselves one question: If another pandemic comes around, “where would they prefer to be?”

Finally, more Brits, Canadians, and Americans, whose passports are among the most valuable in the world, are becoming CRBI applicants. Henley & Partners reports “a dramatic 100% increase in enquiries from US citizens in the first six months of 2020,” which Blewer attributes to economic instability and a poor handling of the coronavirus. US citizens aren’t getting ready to leave en masse, he says, but they’re looking to hedge their bets. In September, a US passport holder could only travel visa-free to 86 countries, down from 171 last year.

“What we have seen with the pandemic is a complete change in the power of a passport,” Arton says.

Source: How Covid-19 is changing citizenship by investment

Filed under Citizenship, citizenship-by-investment Tagged with ,

← Older posts

Newer posts →